Basic to good French cooking, and by extension, to all cooking, are good stocks and sauces. Good soups require good stocks. Many sauces demand them. Vegetables gain in appetizing flavor when they are cooked in stock. No self- respecting cook should think of poaching a fish in other than a fumet, a fish stock made with fish scraps, aromatics and wine. However, you will use such a fumet or court bouillon only when you poach a fish, so that it is not necessary to keep fish stocks on hand, especially because they are best made from the scraps and skeletons of the fish to be poached. However, the usefulness of meat and chicken stocks is so great that every cook should make her own. They keep very well for considerable periods in a deep Read more [...]